FBC Missions

Hola!  This is Kara Meeuwsen and I am going to give you an update on our Sunday experience on July 1st.  We had initially intended to join the youth for their contemporary service at the Babtist Church, but instead ended up helping them get organized for a bbq by washing pealing vegetables, etc.  I enjoyed this because it gave me another opportunity to work and talk side by side with some of the Bolivian women.  At 11 we headed into the sanctuary and attended the normal service.  The congregation was very welcoming and even sang us their traditional welcoming song while we were up on stage. 

After the service we went out to lunch where we all ate an extraordinary amount of meat.  In order to work off some of our meal, we decided it would be a good idea to hike up to the top of El Cristo.  El Cristo is the tallest Christ statue in all of South America.  Earlier in the week we had been debating on how fast we could make it to the top of this mountain in order to reach El Cristo.  (There is a tram or taxi available for most, but that just takes out the pride factor).  Tony decided that 20 miuntes would be the time to make and so that became several of our teams goal.  The hike is only about a mile, but it is very steep and at an already high elevation, this seemed like a lofty goal.  I believe there were just under 1000 steps to the top.  A fair amount of our group have also been entertaining colds and other illnesses, so we weren´t in the best of conditions by any means.  In the end, three of us made it under the mark, although I have to say I was beat by the end.  We were able to climb up inside of the Cristo about to His arm and walk around, etc.  This was definately a memorable experience.

Our final event for the evening was going to evening services.  Our group split into two and we went to churches we had never been to before.  The services were very different from each other.  The church that I went to was very small and very traditional.  Many of the songs we sang were in Ketchua (spelling?).  I would say that both groups learned something new about Bolivian culture and what an impact leadership can have on a church.

At the end of our Bible Study that night everyone was very exhausted.  We decided to integrate free (nap) time into more of our days and it has brightened our spirits greatly since then.  I would ask though for prayer that our spirits would continue to be lifted as we near the end of our trip and our days are still long.  Thank you all and goodnight.

Kara Meeuwsen

Two weeks. 14 days. 336 hours. This is how much time that Paul Calvert had to learn Spanish before embarking on a mission trip with nine other college age students to Bolivia. ¿Was he successful? More or less.

Only with the knowledge of English, French and Japanese did Paul enter the appenticeship of two Spanish Majoring friends, Carrie and Rebecca. Through rigorous hours, daunting conjugations and many moments of clueless histeria, Paul came closer to conquering the exotic lanuguage of Spanish.

Once in Bolivia, however, it quickly became apparent that Paul understood very little, if any, Spanish at all. Riding on a bus for six hours from La Paz to Cochabomba, Paul could not distinguish at all the conversations or lives going on around him. Even after the bus ride there was no reprieve. Riding with a Pasorial worker from the Church, Jonny (now our favorite local), regaled many stories of novelty and exravagence, none of which Paul could understand.

But Paul was not alone. There were others on the trip who understood little Spanish at all. Gaining support and strength from these compatriots, Paul felt compelled to enlist the aid of more knowledgable individuals on the trip. Great Spanish scholars such as Bri, Ty, Jenna and Kara provided much of the experience and insight that Paul needed to communicate with the people of Bolivia.

Paul soon found his chance to put his newly acquired Spanish to practice. The team was going to do VBS at Camp Jireh, a ministry for children from the streets. While playing soccer with these wonderful children, Paul found oppurtunities to yell “AQUI” and “GOAL!” With these small trimuphs, Paul became more venturous and talked to Escarletta (a little girl) through a sock-puppet snake named Bernardo.

As Paul became more proficient at Spanish, he continued to learn and make mistakes. Mishearing Ty at a dinner with another family, Paul mistakenly said “Oil travleing to Bolivia” before Ty intervened, restating the Spanish word making it “BEFORE traveling to Bolivia”.  At that same dinner, Paul meant to say “a little hot,” but accidently called Kara “a little shut-up”. Quite embarrassing for Paul. Someone that Paul felt very comfortable making mistakes with was Jonny, our Pastorial friend. This was excusable, because while Jonny taught Paul Spanish, Paul taught Jonny Japanese. Jonny´s favorite phrases at the moment are “Konnichiwa” (hello) and “Arigatoo” (Thank you).

This all came to a head on Saturday night: College Youth Group. Dan leads the college group down here, so it only came naturally that we would meet our respective peers. These were no children still learning Spanish themselves. This was no forgiving local learning Japanese. These were College students just like Paul and the rest of the team.

And how did Paul do? Wonderfully. He was quite surprised, actually. He rambled on about anything and everything, and through limited help and exaggerated hand gestures, Paul was successful in communicating with them. They talked about their individual studies, family, the decorations being from Roccoco era in Europe, how Bolivia was, everything. Paul was so enthralled with speaking with a student named Jorge, that he failed to notice the tiny dog ¨Guapo” (”handsome”) eating his delicious pastry. Paul met Davide, Alejandro, Daniel, Andrea and Damaris, all of whom were inexplicable and amibable people. They would no doubt be Paul´s friends sooner if they lived with him down in Eugene.

After that evening though, Paul realized that we in the Church share a bond that goes deeper than any language ever could: genuine love. Everywhere that the team has went these past few days, we have been welcomed by our gracious hosts and loved upon (they usually do this through food). Though half of us could never understand what they were actually saying, we could feel the love and joy of Christ coming out, and that is what matters. Not only is this awesome, but it also means something. Even if there are those that will never understand what we say (figuratively and literally), we can still make them feel loved. And that is only one thing that God has blessed us all with through joining his family.

 Sincerely,

Paul

During the last few days the teens (from Chicago & the missionary families) had begun to play basketball and soccer in the evening with the local teens.  When the locals found that our teens weren’t able to come play until after dinner because they were working on the church building, two of the boys asked if they could come help.  Those two boys worked hard and came to our farewell celebration.  Please pray that they come again to the church!

 Brandon (center) and the two Polish boys

We said our farewells to the New Hope Fellowship church members on Friday evening and left for the airport by 5:30am.  We and the Burnells flew together as far as Denver.  On our trans-atlantic flight we were informed that all our luggage had not left Wroclaw with us due to the plane being overloaded.  This allowed us to move quickly through customs (no waiting for the baggage).  After 28 hours of travel we arrived safely at the Eugene airport at 11pm. Now all we have left of our trip is for our luggage to catch up with us so we can unpack… and to tell all of you about what we have each learned, seen, and done. 

Thank you for praying for us!

Anna, on behalf of the Poland 2007 team